Portfolio

        When creating the portfolio we used the application Adobe Acrobat Pro. I would say this was a fun and interesting project because we never used the application Adobe Acrobat Pro. As our final project I think it was a great project to end this semester. After so much hard work an completing lab after lab and projects after projects, we were finally able to put all our work in a portfolio. It was interesting because we did not create our portfolio by printing our work but by doing it interactively. I feel like for a day working on this project, I created a decent portfolio.  I know I could have improved by adding descriptions to my portfolio. When I have the time I know I should add the descriptions because I know it will allow me to see my labs/ projects as well as the reflection journals I made for every assignment I did. When creating my portfolio I tried customizing it as much as I could. I did not want a solid background. Therefore, I used a cookie monster background because as a child I always liked cookie monster. Thus, creating a portfolio allowed me to see the progress I have made this year. I never expected myself to do labs/projects in application I have never used before. I was never able to see what I was capable of doing until now. I know in the future I am going to obtain more skills and broaden my knowledge. I cannot wait for junior year.

Project 10- Yearbook

           For this project we used the application Adobe Indesign and Adobe Photoshop CS6. This project required us to use our visual skills and creativity. In this project we worked in groups of 5. I was placed as there leader and it was the first time I was placed as leader. This project was stressful but fun at the same time. We made a plan before hand but we still had difficulty completing to on time. On my behalf I would say it was sort of difficult for me because one of my members did not do anything. I know as a leader, you should  encourage your members and create a positive atmosphere. I kept trying to encourage him to get involved with us and help us come up with ideas but he did not make an effort to contribute some of his ideas. As a group we were having difficulty deciding a theme we all agreed upon. As a result, we decided to have Family as our theme. We felt that this was a perfect theme because the web design academy is a family. With Family as our theme, we are able to find more inspiration to create our yearbook.
          In this project, one may think its easy to complete it because there are 5 members in a group. However, I believe its harder to work in a group because everyone must contribute and agree as a group on which features to add. When someone does not contribute it makes it quite hard. Although, it was hard to work in groups it is a good idea to experience working in groups because you get to learn how to work in teams. It strengthens your communication skills. I really liked this project because we were able to see all the memories we shared together through the pictures we used in our yearbook. This project made us realize how much the class means to us. Its not the same as any other class because in our web design class we create joyful memories full of laughter that no other academy experiences. We all get along and work together. We're family and we're are proud to say we are part of the web design academy. Once finishing our yearbook, I was proud of the work we have done, we may have been able to improve it but we were running out of time. I really liked how we played out our yearbook and how the cover of our yearbook looked like. I know we should have used ore consistency throughout our yearbook. In this project I learned that we must always make a plan and go with the plan instead of procrastinating. I believe we took a long time and had difficulty completing our project because we got distracted  taking pictures of each other while doing work. Overall, I loved doing this project because everyone was able to bond with one another.

Project 8 Museum of Natural History

    Prior to completing this project, we went to the Museum of Natural History. The purpose of this project was to go to the museum in order to get pictures/inspiration to create an advertisement for the museum. The main application we used fro this project was Adobe Indesign. I also used Adobe photoshop to create the collage of my project. I decided to base my advertisement specifically on the Butterfly exhibition instead of the museum overall. I felt that since butterflies can symbolize many deep meanings, I believed that analyzing butterflies at a deeper meaning will allow me to gather enough inspiration. With this project I wanted to incorporate some of the skills I learned on my previous labs/projects. Therefore, I decided to create a collage by making a mask in photoshop. I tried being creative by making my mask a butterfly and then adding all the pictures I took of the butterfly exhibition inside my butterfly collage mask. I decided to do this because the target audience I was aiming towards was children. Therefore, I tried incorporating the pictures I took in a creative manner to make it look intriguing, interesting and fun. In addition, I played around with the fonts trying to find a playful but easy to read font. I tried to but emphasis on the words by making some words bigger and some slanted. I made the words I believed were important bigger than the rest. 

    This lab requires us to use our visual skills. For instance, we had to demonstrate our advertisement in a easy but interesting manner. We had to do this by making our design appealing to the audience eye. I liked my final result. However, I believe I could have added more features to my advertisement because I feel like I have a lot of white space. This project was not so hard. The only difficulty in this project was probably how you presented the advertisement visually. You have to find colors that contrast with one another. 

Project 9 Newsletter Reflection

           In this project we were suppose to create a newsletter. This project required us to work in teams and use every individuals skills into one to create a great newspaper. The application we used was Adobe Indesign CS6. Indesign allowed us to layout our newspaper in an organized way because Indesign is like a place where you just add all your graphics or text to create any form of materials such as brochures, newsletters, ads, books and business cards. In addition, Indesign allowed us to  package our file in order to share it with any of our teammates. This was an important factor in creating the newsletter as a group because each of us had to make our own spreadsheet based on the subtopic we were given. In this case my group decided to do our newsletter about art. In our newsletter we decided to have 3 subtopics relating to the topic art which were articles based on art paintings, sculptures, anime and music. We all decided to do our spreads based on the subtopic we were most interested in. I chose to write about sculptures because I have always been interested in sculptures and the stories behind them and its sculptor. After completing our spreads we had to package our file and send it to the leader (chief editor) so she could combine all of our work into one.

         


          Overall, I loved my team and the topic we chose to do. At first I was sort of scared and nervous of doing the project as a group because in our previous projects we worked independently. However, this time we were introduced to a new task which was working in groups, my group had 5 members including myself. At first my group was not taking it seriously we thought we had a sufficient amount of time to finish the newsletter but as the days passed nay we realized we were wrong. Towards the last week we were rushing and were under great pressure to complete our project. We were afraid we were not going to finish the project on time. I believed we had trouble organizing ourselves because at first we kept changing the subtopics we were going to write about and we kept procrastinating. As a result, I did like our final result because I like how we organized our spreads and I definitely liked the background we used for our pages. Although, I liked our newsletter I feel like we could have worked on the cover of the newsletter more in order to make it better. During this lab investigation I learned how to wrap texting; how to wrap text around an image. But most importantly I learned the idea of team work. The idea of team work is something that will be useful to me in the future. Before I believed I could only work independently and that working in groups was the worst thing that could happen to me because in previous years when I would work in groups it always turn ed out bad. Nevertheless, this project allowed me to believe that team work is a very important factor that we must all know because we must all know how to communicate with others and combine all of our ideas with others to create something magnificent. Team work is the key to success.

CTE EXPO Reflection Journal

           The CTE Expo was a great experience not only for me but for the visitors as well. This event allowed me to teach and show others the skills I have learned. At times we may not notice the things we have accomplished but when sharing our knowledge and ideas to others, we find out that we know much than we have expected. I feel that even if this was my first CTE Expo I did a great job creating and presenting my board. When showing others my work, I knew the main idea was to show them the benefits of being part of the web design academy. I did this by showing the logos I have created because being part of the web design academy requires you to be creative and organized. When you bring creativity and passion together, you can create something amazing. I found it necessary to explain to the freshman and teachers who came that creating a logo is not all that hard because logos are like symbols. It may be hard presenting others your work, but you do not have to tell others everything, just the main key points. In this special event I would say my favorite part was presenting my project to teachers who I had freshman year. I was excited to show them how much I have grown and demonstrate them that I will try my best to create magnificent things. For instance, a teacher who I was excited to show my work to were Mrs. Hyde and Mr. Rollon because I wanted to show them how hard I work, and to show them how much I have grown and learned.  I know they have been the most supporting teachers who believe in my capacity, I do not want to disappoint them but show them how great I can be.
          During the CTE Expo, I was jittering from nervousness and excitement. All I could think about was how to approach our following visitors and showing them around my work as well as the surrounding works made by the juniors and sophomores. I found it a bit difficult to approach some freshman's because some looked uninterested or not as friendly. However, although these obstacles occurred I still approached some freshman's (mostly the friendly looking students) and showed them my board or the boards of others to show the how we were all able to create different logos. All of us using different components or elements to make our logo as attractive as possible. I observed that the majority of freshman's were more interested in the work the juniors and seniors did because they were made digitally. Since I observed this, I showed the freshman's the work the juniors and seniors did. By the end of the day I was tired of walking around. I felt like at the beginning of the CTE Expo I was just getting used to speaking up to others, towards the middle of the CTE Expo I felt that I was more comfortable and confident in presenting my work and the work of others, and then towards the end I felt tired but I did not let that stop me from still persuading the freshman students the work us web design students did. I found this event very helpful because just as how I was showing others my work, I was also learning from the work the juniors and seniors made. The work the juniors and seniors did gave me a clear idea about the further skills we are going to gain to become great web designers. Overall, I discovered that communication is important as well as presenting something visually, I was able to improve my social skills.

New Years Resolution

            New Year new me, mostly every person on earth says. As a new year begins, everyone person starts to create resolutions to achieve within the new year. Although, individuals tend to create goals for themselves sometimes they do not achieve their goals due to the insufficiency of not specifically explaining how they are going to achieve their goal. For this new year I have two major resolutions i want to achieve within this year. One for school and outside of school. My resolution that can be applied to school is participating more and loosing my shyness. I can usually be social with others but at times I'm scared of participating in class and sharing my thoughts because I'm scared what others may think. But as my new years resolution I want to boost up my confidence and participate more by answering question I am fully sure I know the answer to or if I am truly confident of my work. I want to start participating in my geometry class or english class first because I feel most confident in those classes. 

           Another new years resolution is doing more productive things at home. I believe I can mostly apply this new years resolution at home. Most of the time I tend to use to my phone often at home texting my friends instead of being capable of using all those hours to do something more productive. I rally want to start using most of my time  making sketches and designing clothes because someone day I want to learn fashion. I think its better to start now then never or than starting too late. I plan to achieve this goal by shutting my phone of completely and me distancing myself away from my phone or at least limit myself to using my phone up to an hour. I want to use all my extra time to use my creativity or studying and reviewing notes for classes. I do not want to waste my time using my phone on my spare time and later regretting it.